


Walk A Mile In My Shoes

by ariedana



Category: Take That
Genre: Gen, body swapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-10
Updated: 2013-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-14 12:38:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/836960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariedana/pseuds/ariedana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an argument, Gary and Rob feel like they completely don't understand each other. But a freaky turn of events shows them that they understand far more than they ever realized.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to jennreyn for the beta and to shutupolly and wintel on Tumblr for the inspiration!

Gary had always been proud of his patience. It was the quality that had helped him make it through the wilderness years, waiting in the US for the UK to accept him again, and then through the early years of the reunion where he waited for all the pieces to fall together. Heck, it was completely fitting that the single that brought them back was called “Patience”.

But no one in his life, from his kids to the most rabid of fans to even Simon Cowell, had ever tried his patience as much as the man standing before him, giving him the five millionth excuse why he wasn’t up to another writing session.

“Gaz, I haven’t slept a wink in 72 hours,” Rob said, shifting from foot to foot but seemingly more annoyed at having to explain himself than sorry that he’d let Gary down. “My insomnia has gotten awful again, and you know I can’t take anything for it.”

“And it has nothing to do with getting a copy of FIFA 2013 three days ago, right?” Gary tried not to betray his annoyance, but his words had a distinct bite to them.

“The only thing that calms my mind is to get lost in the game,” Rob said. “I have to do something.”

“Funny, when I need my mind calmed it’s the music that soothes me,” Gary commented dryly.

“That’s because you’re obsessed,” Rob rejoined. “You never shut yourself off. It’s fucking annoying sometimes.”

The remaining bits of Gary’s self control began to tatter.

“You know what, Rob?” he spat out. “I’ve been here four days. I came in the middle of the X Factor live rounds just because you said you had stuff ready to go and a ton of ideas. And in four days, I’ve gotten a tan and bought suits for the rest of the series, but not a single song worked on. But somehow I’m the one who’s fucking annoying?”

“Well excuse me for thinking you’d like to see me,” Rob replied with a mixture of anger and hurt. “I didn’t realize that everything was only about writing fucking songs.”

“It’s not all about writing songs, but I’m not at your beck and call like the rest of your entourage,” Gary said. “I have a life. I have a family who miss me. I have people I’m mentoring on a show who had to talk to me via Skype instead of in person. For all I know they’ll be completely shit tomorrow night, because I haven’t seen their production at all.”

“I know, I know, you’re big and important and I’m just another fuckup you have to get in line,” Rob said heatedly. “I don’t know why you even bother, frankly.”

Gary stood up and picked up his leather messenger bag angrily.  
“You know, I don’t either,” he said. “You talk a big game about changing, even how I changed you. But you don’t really walk the walk, Rob. And you have no fucking idea how hard it is to be me when I have to deal with everything and you add your shit.”

“Well, you have no clue how hard it is to be me and know that I am never going to be good enough for you,” Rob responded, turning his back from Gary on the patio towards the Los Angeles horizon. “I can’t live up to the standards of Sir Gary Barlow, the king of everything. Same as it was in the 90s and even more insufferable now.”

Gary shoved his chair forward, scraping the concrete with a ferocity that belied the anger boiling in his belly. He walked toward the door.

“Whatever, Rob,” he said. “I know you can’t be bothered to get me to the airport, so I’ll show myself out.”

Gary stormed out as Rob continued to glare at the horizon.

\--------------------------------------

Eight hours later, Gary was negotiating his way into a first-class cabin for the second leg of his flight back to London. Things had not gone any better for him since his fight with Rob. He had managed to get to LAX with the help of Josie, who had apparently been lurking during the argument and had quietly arranged for a driver to load his bags and get him to the airport. But thanks to a ridiculously long line at security and a slightly intrusive search of his baggage, he barely made his first flight. Instead of flying to New York for his Heathrow transfer, he was forced to go to Atlanta, an airport he was unused to and which had the most confusing terminal system in the universe. He got on the wrong tram to the wrong terminal and almost routed himself to Fargo, North Dakota instead of London, meaning he once again nearly missed his flight.

He plopped tiredly into his seat, thankful that for this trip he had no assistant or family or band members sitting next to him, forcing him to be social. Rob was not the only one who had trouble sleeping recently - the main problem with a short London-to-LA trip is that the jet lag never really went away. At noon it felt like midnight, and he knew the next day back home would be hellish. Especially since he was going straight from Heathrow to the ITV Studios for the live X Factor show. He rubbed his temples wearily at the thought.

Thirty minutes later the plane had reached cruising altitude, Gary had a Jack and Coke in hand and life didn’t seem quite so bad. But it was still time for him to put an early end to a shit day ending a shit week in LA. He put on his Bose headphones, turned on his favourite relaxing playlist on Spotify on his iPhone, and strapped the silk eyeshade over his eyes, reclining his seat back as far as it would go. He hoped that no fans decided that this would be a great time for an autograph and that he’d sleep straight through to Heathrow. And as he drifted off, he thought that Rob really did have no clue how hard it was to be Gary Barlow sometimes.

\-------------------------

Back in Los Angeles, Rob laid sprawled on his bed. Ayda was next to him, sound asleep despite the relatively early hour. Teddy was teething and fussy, and despite the nanny she insisted on being up with her as much as she could when she woke up crying in pain. Rob didn’t feel quite the necessity to be with his crying daughter, but he realized that was yet another thing wrong with him. He was not only a shit songwriter and a shit collaborator, but a shit father and husband, apparently.

Since Gary had left earlier, both Ayda and Josie had tried to talk him out of his black mood. Ayda was truthfully just about as annoyed as Gary was by Rob’s latest computer game, seeing as it was impossible to have any sort of family or couple time with him when he was engrossed, but she also knew that Rob’s obsessions were part of him, a needed escape from all the other things that could occupy his brain and drive him to even darker habits. So mostly she tried to just listen to him rant and occasionally point out that no, Gary was actually on his side, only dealing with a lot on his own. That only lead to a detailed history from Rob of all of the times Gary had put his ambition over his friendships and had put work over fun.

Josie, having heard this history from Rob regularly since the late ‘90s, was more direct - he didn’t need to let all that crap they put in the past come back out as ammunition. She knew enough to know that when he was on the outs with Gary, he just had no joy in doing anything remotely productive. It was ironic that the man who had largely been blamed for all of Rob’s anxieties in the ‘00s had also been one of the main reasons Rob had moved past the stage fright and started enjoying his work again. She didn’t want to lose that.

But Rob couldn’t be talked out of his anger this time, and eventually the women decided that at least for now repairing the Gary/Rob friendship was a lost cause. One last effort to cheer Rob up via a nice sushi spread was unsuccessful, so Josie went home, Ayda went to sleep and Rob laid next to her, flipping through his special UK television setup and finding that even watching Manchester City lose a match miserably was small comfort.

Rob finally closed his eyes. He normally stayed up most of the night, but after four days of no sleep the universe gave him a solid. His last thought as he went to sleep is that he wished Gary knew, just once, what it was like to be him.

\------------------

When Gary woke up several hours later, he anticipated seeing the muted lighting of the British Airlines cabin, the bland leather seat in front of him, and the remains of the Jack and Coke on the stand before him. He expected to still hear the drone of the plane engine as it continued its journey across the Atlantic.

Instead, he saw a dark room with a king sized bed. The only light was coming from a gigantic projection television, droning mindless teleshopping ads he recognized from late-night telly back home. And as he turned his head, he saw a blonde head on the pillow beside him. But instead of Dawn’s light blonde, shoulder length hair, he saw darker blonde curls spilling over onto the bed.

Suddenly he realized that instead of being on a plane, he was in Rob’s bedroom back in Los Angeles. In bed with Ayda.

He jumped out of the bed, thinking that surely something must have happened he didn’t remember. He must have missed his plane, or maybe that whole horrible day was just a dream. Maybe he had sleepwalked from his usual attic room to Rob’s room and accidentally went to bed in Rob’s bed. Maybe this was a dream. Yeah, that’s it.

He ran into Rob’s bathroom and flipped on the light.

Ayda had been sleeping soundly, used to Rob’s nocturnal tossing and turning and not even noticing when he woke up. But suddenly a loud cry from the bathroom jolted her to sleep. Scared out of her wits, she ran into the bathroom and saw her husband staring at himself in horror in the mirror.

“Rob, what happened?” she asked. “Are you alright? Is Teddy okay?”

The man turned and looked at her, and she realized whilst he had Rob’s dark hair, hairy chest and all the tattoos, something was distinctly different about him. His normal bottle green eyes were much lighter in colour. They looked like Gary’s eyes.

“I’m not Rob!” he said in a different voice from Rob’s usual musical tones. “What the fuck has happened to me?”

\-----------------

Around the same time, Rob woke up and found himself slumped in a first-class seat on a darkened plane. He blinked repeatedly, trying to remember if he had lost track of time and was taking a trip somewhere that he didn’t remember. He looked over next to him for Ayda or Josie and saw no one. Everyone around him was asleep.

He looked down at his clothes. Instead of his usual plane attire of sweats and trainers, he was wearing skinny jeans and a polo. And what the fuck had happened to his tattoos?

He jumped up and went to the toilet. If anyone had been awake to witness it, they would have heard a distinct squeak coming from the other side of the door as Rob looked at himself in the mirror. Because suddenly Rob had blonde hair, a beard and was several inches shorter. The only thing about him that wasn’t Gary was his eyes, which were Rob’s distinctive green.

Rob stared at himself in the mirror for several more minutes and started examining himself, even making sure that all his “male parts” were intact (he was actually kind of impressed with what he found.) Finally, he just started laughing.

For years, Rob had wondered what he would do if he were Gary. If he were loved and adored by everyone, the darling of the nation, he was the leader of the band. But also what it would be like if Gary weren’t so rigid, so controlling, had so many sticks up his arse.

It looked like he was going to actually find out.


	2. Chapter 2

“Got this, mate, but thanks,” Mark said shouldered his carry-on bag and picked up the handle of his checked bag, waving the driver of his hired car off and turning up towards Rob’s side door. 

He liked to take care of his things, and luckily he had packed lightly. He only hoped that Rob remembered that he was arriving today and wasn't out, because the grounds of Rob's LA spread were eerily quiet. No barking dogs, no bustling staff, and no Rob on his patio, stretching and jokingly surveying all that he owned.

Mark sighed and pressed the buzzer on the intercom. After a few moments, Josie answered.

"Who is it? We're not expecting anyone. Can you come back?" Josie said in a voice that Mark almost placed as panic but then dismissed as being warped by static.

"Josie, it's Mark," he said. "Mark Owen. Rob should be expecting me. He asked me to come visit him this week."

There was a moment of pause, with a rustling sound that resembled whispering. Damn static, Mark thought.

"Of course, Mark," Josie said. "Come on in."

The door buzzed and Mark shook his head, wondering why no one came to the door. Usually when he visited Rob was at the door, more excited than any of his pups, hugging the life out of him and talking a mile a minute before Mark even stepped over the stoop. But this time no one appeared to even be in the home. But oh well, maybe Rob was still asleep. It was 9 am, after all. 

Mark made his way through the opulent hallway, past the kitchen and finally into Rob's television room. Normally this would be the place where Rob would be enthralled by the latest game on his X-Box, or maybe watching a video with Teddy - he made no bones about being far more interested in Yo Gabba Gabba than his toddler daughter, and he even had a custom-made red chair with black trim like Steve in Blue's Clues had. But today there was no telly on, no Teddy, and no one there except for Josie, Ayda, and Rob, who was holding his face in his hands.

"Hello, guys," Mark said cheerfully but tentatively as he put his bag down. He had no idea why Rob was so seemingly despondent but he was used to Rob's moods, and sometimes the best way to handle it was to act normally. But it was kind of hard, since both Josie and Ayda looked like they had been hit by twin trains, both of which then ran clean over Rob. At once.

"Ro....um, why don't you talk to Mark?" Ayda said. "He knows you. He's known you longer than both of us. He's going to understand."

"How can you say that?" a muffled voice said from behind Rob's hand tattoos. "I don't understand. What the fuck has happened to me? And why drag Mark into this?"

"Mark's here," Josie said. "He's involved whether you want it. And both of you are close to him. He's going to want to help."

"Um, help with what?" Mark asked, sinking into a chair across from Rob on the couch. "What's going on, Rob? What happened now? Is it the fight with Gary?"

The man in front of him groaned and seemingly smacked himself on the forehead with the palm of one hand.

"You know about the fight?" Josie inquired.

"Gary texted me from LAX," Mark said. "He was worried that this had scuttled any plans for Rob to join us on the next album."

"I was worried about ROB," the voice behind the hands said indignantly. "He was so pissed..."

"...and might need to be talked down," Mark finished. "But how do you know what Gary texted me? Did he call you? Did something happen to him? And why did you say that you were worried about yourself in the third person?"

"Rob" groaned again.

"What am I going to do?" he said. "I can't do this, Ayda."

"It's the only way, Gary," Ayda said in a low voice. "You have no choice."

Mark was so confused that he began to feel dizzy.

"Why are you calling him Gary?" he asked. "This is Rob."

The man in front of him finally raised his head, meeting Mark's gaze. The hair, the face, everything about him looked like his best friend Rob. But the eyes were not Rob's eyes. They were a lighter green, red-rimmed and piercing.

They were Gary's eyes.

That's the last thought that raced through Mark's mind before he slid off his chair, passed out cold.

\--------------------

The man who walked briskly through the arrivals terminal at Heathrow was Gary Barlow. At least that's what everyone around him thought as they snuck glances at him on the people mover, sneakily texting and tweeting their prized encounter with a superstar.

But no one thought to notice that even though the man had Gary's blonde hair, carefully sculpted stubble, skinny jeans and maroon polo, his face was somehow markedly different. His eyes were a much darker green than previously, almost resembling an old Coke bottle. And the expression on his face was nothing short of a sneer.

For his part, Rob was finding it surprisingly easy to step into Gary's shoes, literally. Whilst it was clear that people recognized him and in some cases greeted him by name, they also seemed to have an odd sort of respect for him. No one tried to harass him or ask him embarrassing questions or, worst of all, burst into tears. He heard no whispered "wanker" epitaphs as he passed people. This was the nice sort of fame he'd always had described to him by the other boys but had never thought would be possible for himself. The kind of fame where he could be in public places by himself and not have a panic attack. In fact he had never felt so grounded, so in control...

Rob reached into his pocket, pulling out the baggage information he'd found. He soon went to the indicated baggage carousel and retrieved the bag that he recognized as being Gary's.

As he left the terminal and walked out towards the cab stand, he heard a horn suddenly blaring.

"Over here, Mr. Barlow," a uniformed driver shouted as he jumped out of his limo.

Rob smiled as he walked over to the man, who took his bag and escorted him to the passenger side.

"You must not have seen me, sir," the driver said. "Off in the clouds writing your next hit?"

Rob smiled as he put on his sunglasses and settled into the back seat.

"Oh yes," he murmured. "All the hits I'm going to write."

"I don't know how you could do more than you already do, Mr. Barlow," the driver said with admiration in his voice. "You are the best pop lyricist of your generation."

Rob found himself bristling.

"That would be accurate, but not in the way you think," he said so sharply that the driver turned around abruptly.

"Sir, is something wrong?" he asked.

Rob sighed, forcing the anger down. The poor man didn't need to know that once again Rob was reminded how he was always second best.

"Nothing at all," he said crisply. "Home now, yeah? I have a lot to do."

"But sir, have you forgotten about the live show tonight?" the driver asked. "We're cutting it close to get to the studio as it is. Two hours till it starts. There's no time to go elsewhere."

"Oh yeah!" Rob exclaimed, remembering the X Factor taping that Gary had been moaning about off and on all week. "Well, time to get this party started. It's going to be a special show tonight. I advise you to make sure you're watching."

Rob smiled smugly in a way that confused the driver, who was unused to this particular mood from his longtime passenger. Then Rob reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, which was buzzing as it pulled in all of the messages that had been sent whilst he was flying across the Atlantic. The one on the screen when Rob looked was from Mark.

"Rob, what in the hell have you done to Gary?"

Well, so much for that, Rob thought. It wasn't just him and Gary anymore in this. It was only a matter of time until the whole world knew about this weird thing that had happened. So he might as well enjoy the perks of being Gary Barlow whilst it lasted. Maybe Mark could help Gary get over the horrors of being Robbie Williams in the meantime.

Rob reached down and turned off the mobile without looking at any other messages. He then began trying to remember if he had actually payed attention that week when Gary talked about his category.

\----------------

It was now noon in Los Angeles. Gary was still sitting on the couch, now with Mark slumped beside him, still recovering from shock. Gary was holding a glass of bourbon on the rocks, something that he didn't believe existed in Rob's house.

"Take this," Josie had said as she handed him the glass. "I have this stashed in the guest house for emergencies."

"Do I need to drink this though?" Gary asked. "Rob's an alcoholic. Wouldn't that now make me an alcoholic? And even if not, what happens when Rob's back and I've been drinking in his body? And why are you guys not freaking out with me? Ayda, your HUSBAND is in my body?"

Ayda broke in.

"Gary, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it," she said. "Don't worry. You need to calm down before we see what's going on on the X Factor. And honestly, with Rob nothing surprises anyone around here anymore.”

Gary felt the panic rising again. Dammit, apparently Rob's ability to freak out didn't switch bodies with him.

"But they can't possibly do the show," he said. "I'm not there! They're going to know that."

Josie sighed as she switched channels on Rob's modded UK set top box.

"I haven't heard a word about any sort of cancellation or about you pulling out of the show," she said. "Rob probably decided to go ahead and do the show before telling anyone what happened."

"But how could he do that?!?" Gary almost shouted. "He's not me! He can't mentor my team or vote for me. He just CAN'T!"

"Gaz, do you recall ever being able to tell Rob that he can't do anything?" Mark asked as he typed away on his phone.

"Who are you talking to, Markie?" Gary asked. "Not Dawn. Please not Dawn."

"Relax, Gaz," he said. "I'm just making sure Dougie and Jay watch the show. If anyone can figure out what to do in this situation with Rob, it's those two."

Gary sighed, rubbed his temples and then glared down at the Take That symbol tattooed on his arm, seemingly mocking him.

"I hope so, because I'll be fucked if I know."

\--------------------

Howard read the text on his mobile and laughed. Then he turned to Jason.

“Jay, do you mind if we postpone the Extras marathon until after the X Factor?” he asked his friend, who was stretched out on the sofa next to him. “Mark just sent me a really weird message asking me to watch tonight’s show.”

Jason groaned.

“Why would he ask us to do that?” he said. “I get enough of those stupid competition shows when we have to perform at them. We’re on hiatus!”

Howard sighed.

“You use that excuse for everything,” he said. “‘Howard, I don’t want to get a haircut. I’m on hiatus.’ Or ‘I don’t want to go to the cinema and face the crowds. I’m on hiatus.’ Pretty soon you’ll be staying on your couch for months on end, reading books, because everything else is off limits on hiatus. But oh wait, you already do.”

Jason rolled his eyes.

“Whatever. I just hate watching people grabbing for fame for fame’s sake, not realizing the consequences of their actions on societal norms and what people should be striving for as their goals...”

“I know, I know, fame sucks, blah blah blah,” Howard chuckled. “We’re not watching to see the performances anyway. Mark said something’s going on with Gary and we need to watch to see if we notice anything.”

Jason looked puzzled.

“What does that mean, ‘Something’s going on with Gary?’” he asked. “What are we supposed to be watching for?”

Howard shrugged, typing out a response to Mark.

“Dunno, mate,” he said. “I’m asking Mark for more info now.”

After a moment, as Jason flipped through the channels and attempted to talk Howard into alternative programming, Howard read the response from Mark.

“Mark said we need to take a good look at his eyes,” he reported to Jason. “And his facial expressions.”

“So read body language, basically?” Jason asked. “Sounds kinda flimsy. Why don’t we just call Gary or Mark and find out what’s going on?”

“Too late, mate,” Howard said as they finally landed on ITV1. “The show’s starting. Let’s humour the little one and watch, okay? It’s only an hour.”

The bombastic opening titles rolled and Dermot O’Leary made his grand entrance onstage, followed by the judges. For all appearances things seemed as normal. 

“Nice suit, Gaz,” Jason commented. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him wear a scarf before with a suit. It’s interesting.”

“That it is,” Howard added. “And it looks like the hair person went a little nuts with his styling gel. I haven’t seen Gaz’s hair stand up like that since the ‘90s.”

As they walked forward, the man they believed was Gary walked between Sharon and Nicole. Suddenly Sharon practically jumped out of her stilettos as he appeared to goose her. She laughed and play-smacked him.

“Well, that’s new,” Howard commented. “Gary’s never been one for the grab ass. Especially on live telly.”

As each judge was introduced, the camera panned to their faces, resting at last on “Gary”. Instead of giving the lens his usual grin and eyebrow raise, he turned up his chin, giving the camera an empirical stare and a cheeky half-smile.

“That’s really odd,” Howard said. “He must have been watching Rob’s old Knebworth videos and picking up new expressions, because that’s vintage Rob.”

Jason didn’t say anything. He continued to stare at the television screen, jumping up to look closer at the face on the screen.

“How, that’s not Gary,” he said. “Look at his eyes.”

Howard looked directly at Gary’s eyes and his mouth dropped open.

“Did he get contacts or something?” he asked. “Why are they so green? They look so much like Rob’s.”

“They ARE Rob’s,” Jason insisted. “Howard, that’s not Gary up there. That’s Rob.”

Howard shook his head, continuing to stare as the man formerly known as Gary Barlow swaggered to his seat on the judging panel.

“But how can it be?” he asked. “It’s not possible.”

“But it is,” Jason said. "That's Rob. But why?"


	3. Chapter 3

Normally Gary didn’t have any problems with seeing himself onscreen, or for that matter hearing his voice on the radio. Much of his life had been built upon staying in that sweet spot right between confidence and arrogance. He never doubted himself, at least not anymore, and whilst he would never be as self-assured about his body as some of his bandmates, he was proud of how he looked now and of how many people - of both genders! - were openly attracted to him. However, he knew enough to know if he ever fully fell into the trap of thinking he was perfect and invincible, he could lose it all. He had already been there.

But today he didn’t want to see himself. Not only in the mirror hanging on the door of Rob’s ensuite, but also on the television downstairs, where the others were watching his real body, the person everyone else in the world thought was actually him, sitting in the judge’s chair on X Factor.

It wasn’t just because he knew that Rob was probably, at that moment, attempting to tatter the reputation he’d built up for himself over the past two series, and even for the 23 years previous, as a serious, mostly non-frivolous musician. Rob would like nothing more than to do what he considered to be “breathing life” into Gary’s image. He fully expected Rob to end up half naked onstage, showing off to the world and not giving a toss about it. And it was pretty much impossible for him to sit and watch it.

But beyond the anticipated embarrassment of a world with Rob unleashed as him, it was the fact that what Rob would do on X Factor as him was the only thing that was scenario was absolutely the only thing he could anticipate. Gary liked being in control in most areas of his life, giving up most of the rest to his wife. Even with the band the others let him captain and just enjoyed being his first mates in sailing the ship of Take That. But suddenly he was powerless to take care of what had happened to him - heck, he didn’t have any idea what had happened to him, so how could he fix it?

He’d already lost control of what was happening around him. All he wanted was to process this, to figure out what parts of him were actually him and not Rob, this huge change in everything he knew, but now other people were involved. Luckily it was the people who loved Rob most, who might be able to talk some sense into him if he ran amuck, but it was also a bunch more people who would be looking at him to do things he didn’t feel capable of doing at this point.

What was he going to do about Dawn? Or his kids? Was Rob going to tell them and be the one to try to explain that their daddy wasn’t actually him but was inside the body of Daddy’s best friend? Would Rob try to be a friend to Dawn and help her process things like Ayda was to Gary right now? Or would he decide that he REALLY wanted to be Gary and take over everything in his life? Including his love?

In his heart - well, in the heart he’d temporarily co-opted from Rob - he knew Rob would never do that to him, to Ayda and particularly to Dawn, a woman who had been nothing but lovely to him at a time she could’ve held grudges . But he worried about what was in the heart that Rob was borrowing. And he couldn’t control that.

So for now Gary could only sit in Rob’s quiet bedroom, stare out the window towards the ocean, and hope that Rob at least left his clothes on for the entire show.

\------------------

Rob had never told Gary this, but he had seen every single episode where Gary judged on the X Factor. He had always been far more of a fan of the show than anyone else in the band - of course he had a predilection towards reality telly that no one else really shared, even Mark, but he also really enjoyed watching it and musing on how things would’ve turned out if he had gone on the show and been packaged into a boyband with the others in the way One Direction had been. Would it have been easier in a Nigel-free world to have made it or would Simon Cowell been even worse? One of his best email conversations ever with Jason had been on this subject, because whilst Jason had his own issues with television talent shows he did appreciate revisiting the subject of a Take That alternate reality occasionally with someone who shared history with it.

But the main reason he watched X Factor religiously every weekend, keeping his Saturdays free so he could watch it live at noon, was because he loved seeing Gary at work, in his element, happy and confident and reveling in his success. He loved seeing Gary taking on the role of being a success story, someone so respected that people turned to him to launch their own careers. Rob had that himself in his life, but usually it was more in the form of people using his name as a launching pad, getting fame without hard work. In this show, Gary helped people who wanted to work for success get it.

Yes, it bothered Rob that relatively few people in his own life seemed to have that sort of respect for him. Those who did had stayed and that’s why he had such great friends. The ones who were now with Gary, probably clucking their tongues over whatever grand stunt Rob had pulled now. But they would help him because above all else they knew how much Rob loved him.

Rob sat in his chair, trying to settle into this new spot in this whole new world whilst also trying to block out all these unexpected thoughts in his brain. The thoughts that said that although he was surprisingly comfortable with this new body and this new identity, he knew Gary would not feel the same. He also knew that Gary would expect the worst. That thought bothered Rob more than anything. He wanted to be mad at him for that, but it didn’t take much to realize that would be a logical conclusion for just about everyone. Maybe not Ayda, but everyone else had decades of dealing with the mercurial side of Robbie Williams.

What they didn’t know was his real heart. Ayda did. Maybe Mark too, because he always believed the best about Rob. Knowing that they now knew who he was, that he was the one wearing Gary’s Prada suit, was enough to keep Rob in that chair when it slammed into him that he was live on British television on a Saturday night, with literally half the country watching him, and he didn’t have a cheeky song and dad dancing to hide behind.

All of these thoughts were racing through his head during the first performance of the night, one that he was very familiar with. They were a boyband, this year’s heir apparent to One Direction. Five guys from the Liverpool era who swore that their influence was actually the Beatles, which Rob had always taken as a rejection of the modern boyband era and a perceived slight to his own band. He had strong opinions on them that he suspected Gary shared, even if he would never admit them. And tonight was all about giving Gary a new voice, right?

They were finishing up a very decent and credible rendition of The Script’s “Hall of Fame”. The other judges were smiling, sipping their water, already confident in what they were going to say. But Rob sat forward, knowing that if he wanted to keep up the ruse of being Head Judge Gary Barlow, he would need to back up every word he said. And as long as he stayed intent on the performance he could quell the growing sense of panic.

The music ended and the audience cheered, including the judges. But Rob’s claps were more automatic, knowing that Gary would never disrespect an act by refusing to acknowledge them after they performed. Rob didn’t know why that mattered so much to him, making sure that Gary would not be disrespected. But it did.

Gary was mentoring the boys team this year, whilst Sharon had the girls, Nicole the groups and Louis the Overs. Sharon was predictably bawdy, mostly focusing on what heartthrobs the guys had been with their acoustic guitars. Louis had repeatedly referenced Westlife in his critiques, seemingly just so the cameras could capture some not-quite-subtle eyerolls from a couple of members, compared their song choice to “The Reason”. Rob suspected that he wasn’t quite able to mask his own boggle at that leap in connection.

Dermot said, “Now Gary, on to you.” Rob stared into the camera focused on the face, almost mesmerized by the red light next to the lens.

“Boys, that was a great song choice for you guys,” Rob hoped like hell that anyone watching wouldn’t notice the tonal change in his voice from Gary’s usual Northern drawl. “It showcased what you are going for as a band.”

The band members, used to very noncommittal comments from the head judge, smiled. They took that as a great compliment.

“But the thing that you don’t realize is that what you’re going for, what’s written into every song that you do, is commercial success,” Rob continued. “And you’re not going to get commercial success by merely standing there with your smiles and your nice haircuts and your guitars and singing. You need to actually entertain and perform and bring the audience into your performance.”

“You guys have talked a big game about being the Beatles and not being other boybands that you think are less than authentic,” Rob said. “But are you being truly authentic in what you’re looking for? Because if you are, you need to get out from behind the instruments and attitude and actually perform as a group. Not as five musicians who are put together because they can’t make it on their own. Even when that’s happened before, with One Direction, the guys got to know each other and become a unit through a shared identity as a band. I’m not seeing that in you guys.”

The members of the band stood in front of Rob, shocked. The one with the biggest eyerolls practically dragged the ground with his chin. The crowd was completely silent. Sharon and Nicole stared at him like he’d grown two heads. Louis had a very weird half-smile on his face.

And Rob felt great. He had actually said what Gary really felt about this band, but would have never said. Gary thought a lot about his legacy, about being in the papers just enough to be remembered but not enough to become a bigger target, about how everything he said would affect the band by reflection. Rob cared more about that than he’d ever let on these days, but he also knew that people really relate to honesty and plainspokenness. He hoped that maybe Gary would see that wherever he is.

He hoped that he could continue to carry this off. And that he didn’t get so comfortable with things that he let his baser instincts take hold and start showing off. He didn’t think that Gary would appreciate it if he voted against his own acts.

\-----------

Gary was lying on the bed, despondently picking at the hummus plate that Josie had brought up - he almost asked her if the hummus was organic and instantly felt ashamed - when Mark came in the room and plopped down beside him.

“How’s it going Ro.....um, Gaz,” Mark said hurriedly, adding, “Sorry mate. You know this is weird.”

“I know Markie,” Gary said, rubbing his temples. “Believe me, I know.”

“Are you feeling any better?” Mark asked.

“Maybe, kind of,” Gary said. “I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Do you?”

“Well, at least I know some immediate things,” Mark said. “Dougie and Jay know.”

“Did they really figure it out just by watching?” Gary said. “It’s that obvious?”

“Honestly, no,” Mark replied. “Not as much as you would think. You’d be surprised at how he’s doing.”

“No, no, I don’t want to know,” Gary said, hands over ears in a gesture that was surprisingly Rob-like.

“Okay, but anyway, Jay knew immediately,” Mark said. “He reads souls, you know.”

“How do you read a soul?” Gary inquired.

“You know Jay,” Mark said. “He knows a lot of weird shit and none of it makes sense to me.”

“And Howard?” Gary asked.

“He got it by body language, mostly,” Mark replied. “Rob doesn’t realize how he twists his face at times, and he’s got that going on. Between that and Jay, he’s convinced. They think that this is the result of some weird experiment by Rob.”

“Does Dawn know?” Gary said. “You didn’t call her did you? Because I told you...”

“No one’s talked to her, Gaz,” Mark said. “But if she’s watching the show she’s got to know something’s up. It’s not obvious unless you’re really looking, though. But you know she’s going to have to find out.”

“NO,” Gary said forcefully. “I can’t bring her and the kids into it until we know what to do about it.”

“We have to face facts,” Mark said. “We don’t know.....”

“NO, just NO,” Gary shouted. “I need to keep someone’s life normal. We need to not scare my kids or my parents and keep things quiet for them. They’ve never been at ease with my life as it is, and this disrupts things completely.”

Mark nodded sadly.

“Okay,” he said.

Gary laid back on the bed, spent again.

“I’m going to have to find out eventually,” he said. “What’s Rob doing on the X Factor? How many times has he been bleeped?”

Mark laughed.

“It’s not that bad, mate,” he said. “I think you would be proud, really. He’s actually a really good judge.”

“That’s not a surprise,” Gary said. “I always knew he would be.”

“But I think you expected him to make it into a spectacle,” Mark said. “He hasn’t. But he’s giving some opinions that are quite, um, plainspoken.”

Gary looked slightly fearful.

“Exactly how plainspoken?” he asked.

“You know the girl who wears the vintage dresses and thinks she’s Lily Allen?” Mark said. “Rob pointed that out to her.”

“Oh wow, I’m sure Sharon’s pissed now,” Gary rubbed the back of his close-shaven neck. “How was he about the joke act?”

“He said that he was coming out of the closet as a secret admirer of them,” Mark replied.

“Dear God,” Gary groaned. “I’ve been trying to get them voted out for weeks. They’ve picked off two of my acts.”

“We’ll see how that goes,” Mark said. “They’re not to the bottom two yet. How knows how he’ll vote if they end up there. But, mate you have to know....”

“What?” Gary asked.

“Rob kind of threw some shade on your song choice for your guy. He said he’d realized he’d been doing him a disservice and promised him next week that he would give him a song that was recorded in the 21st Century.”

Gary groaned, turned over and screamed into his pillow.

\-----------------

The end credits started rolling, the audience was cheering and Rob slumped back in his chair, suddenly completely exhausted. Man, he never actually had known what doing that job was like. It wasn’t just sitting there being snarky in a nice suit. It was all about camera angles and structured opinions and avoiding Sharon’s elbows after he had dissed her diva for not stepping out of her ballad-filled comfort zone. Later, he then got such a sharp kick from Nicole after he told another of her acts, a girl trio, that they were a band full of Cheryl Coles without a Nadine Coyle to keep the quality up. He wasn’t certain that Gary would say that exactly and he anticipated a very nasty text message from Cheryl later, but he thought that Gary would at least chuckle over the analogy. Maybe. Someday.

In the end, the result had turned out in a way that he hoped Gary would be pleased with. The final two were Gary’s remaining act, the one where he had critiqued the song choice, but who he at least liked enough where it wasn’t too hard to vote against the joke act. Who he was less ashamed than Gary to admit was a very entertaining act but who he knew would be a Eurovision act for their native Romania within five years. Plus no one would never buy Gary Barlow ever voting against his own act. But the other three voted before him and put Gary’s act through, taking it out of his hands.

Maybe he could do this, he thought. Maybe he could handle being Gary whilst still being Rob. But it certainly was a lot harder to be Gary than he’d ever thought.

Rob got to his dressing room and stopped short. Sitting on his small couch was Jason and Howard.

“Hello there, Rob,” Jason said. “Nice show tonight.”

Rob tried to look incredulous. “Rob?”

Howard jumped in.

“We know, Rob,” he said. “You had to know we would. So what in the fuck have you done to Gary?”


	4. Chapter 4

Dermot and Olly were great game to hang out with each other when the time presented itself. Olly had left The X Factor this series, and had spent most of his year either in the US or on tour with Rob. But Olly was prone to drop in on his old X Factor stomping grounds when he was in town, because he was close to many people on the show. Especially Dermot and Gary.

When Dermot was done with his Xtra Factor segment, the two of them headed towards Gary’s dressing room, expecting to find Gary freshly changed out of his suit, maybe chatting with a producer or a manager, with a very nice bottle of red waiting with three glasses.

They were not expecting Howard and Jason. Jason in particular. It wasn’t his ideal situation - being at a show or an event without dance moves being part of it. He wasn't sure the last time he'd seen Jason at all, as a matter of fact.

And he didn't entirely look comfortable there even now. Neither did Howard. They were in the middle of what looked to be a spirited discussion with Gary, who for his part seemed to be extremely pleased to see Olly.

"Olly, mate, I've missed you!" Gary jumped up and tackled him in a bear hug. Olly, bemused, disentangled Gary from his embrace.

"I just saw you a week ago Gaz," he said. "Remember the ITV brunch last weekend?"

Gary looked abashed.

"That's what a week in LA does to a brain, man," he said. "Makes you forget things."

"I'll bet," Jason muttered. "I'm surprised you even know who you are."

Howard jumped in quickly.

"We're just getting Gaz ready to go," Howard said. "He's feeling a bit poorly."

Dermot looked puzzled.

"You don't feel well, Gary?" he asked. "You sure looked fine on the show. Great comments by the way. I've been dying to sneak a Lily Allen reference into my script for WEEKS."

"You thought so?" Gary looked pleased. "Well, yeah, the jet lag has apparently done something to me head."

"Is that why you're wearing sunglasses indoors?" Olly asked, pointing to Gary's shades, planted firmly on his nose."

"Yes," Jason said quickly. "Migraine. Brought on by the high altitude, you know. Yet another reason to hate air travel."

"As if you needed any," Howard had a faint smile on his face.

"Anyway, are you about finished suiting up, Gary?" Jason asked. 

Gary, for his part, had been staring at his feet most of the previous conversation, looking dumbly at his shoelaces.

"Man, my head really is done in," Gary said. "I know nowt about tying my shoes. How do I not know how to tie my shoes?"

Dermot and Olly kept feeling odder and odder about Gary. Were they entirely certain he was alright?

"Gaz, you can't tie your shoelaces, remember?" said Dermot. "I've seen a producer tying them a million times."

"Yeah, me too," Olly echoed. "Someday you'll have to explain that to me. You can play anything on the piano but can't manage a knot?"

"We'll have to figure that out another time, boys," Jason said as he straightened back up, having silently and swiftly tied Gary's shoes during the exchange. "Gary clearly needs to get home whilst he's still upright."

"Okay, sure," Dermot said. "Are you going to be okay, Gary? Do you need anything? I'll get you a drink. Maybe that will knock the edge off."

"NO," Gary said forcefully, jumping forward and grabbing his carry-on bag. "I can't drink."

"Because of the painkillers," Howard rejoined.

"Oh, that explains a lot then, I guess," Dermot said. "Sometimes drugs can make you loopy. Well, go and get some rest Gaz. At least your act got through to live another week.”

Gary pumped his fist in the air.

"And the dream lives on!" he said in a way that reminded Olly of something vaguely that he couldn't quite remember. But he shook it away.

"Let me walk you out," he said, trying to take Gary's bag. "You shouldn't be exerting yourself."

Howard reached over and took the bag as Jason retrieved Gary's larger rolling bag.

"We've got it," he said. "If you go out there will be a lot of pictures and a lot of flashes. We're going to try to sneak him out and avoid the cameras."

Gary looked vaguely sad about that. But he didn't say another word as Dermot and Olly made their goodbyes and moved quietly back towards Dermot's dressing room.

"What do you think that was about, mate?" Dermot asked as Olly poured him a highball full of bourbon.

"No telling," Olly said. "I think Rob's beginning to rub off on him."

\----------------------

Even after the confusing and somewhat successful attempt to keep Dermot and Olly from catching onto the truth, the stress wasn't over for Jason, Howard and an increasingly spooked-out Rob. They had to get out of ITV Studios and to Jason's car without anyone else trying to get a moment of the head judge's time, a task that's not easy in the middle of the biggest television show in the country. Once they got to his car, they had to convince Rob that, yes, he was now by far the smallest and thus had to sit scrunched in the middle of the two-seater Mercedes. 

And then they had to figure out what they were going to do from here. Somehow in the rush to get to the show before it ended and the rush to get Rob out of the building without further mayhem, neither Jason or Howard had really given any thought about the specifics of what to do now with Rob, who had absolutely no clue what was going on with anyone else, anywhere. He could only assume that Gary was carefully ensconced somewhere in LA and probably being told how wonderful the switch in personalities was for both Ayda and Josie. Hell, they were probably feeding him frozen grapes and rubbing his feet, Rob imagined morosely.

"I should be going home to Dawn, yeah?" he said. "She's going to be waiting up for me. Well, for Gary. Man, what if she has something planned for Gary?"

"Planned, planned?" Jason said. "Rob, you just spent an hour on live telly after a transatlantic flight. You should be exhausted and crashing right now. Dawn knows that."

"I wouldn't be so sure, mate," Rob said. "You know the 'absence makes the heart grow fonder' thing? Long plane flights and air travel can make you hornier. I thought you would know that, Mr. Jet-Off-To-Thailand-Randomly."

"I want sex when I want to want sex," Jason said, smiling. "I'm in control of my sensual desires. I like to plan my decadent moments."

"You plan when to have one-night-stands?" Rob said incredulously.

"I sense my body and mind's need for release and figure out a timetable for that to occur," Jason replied.

"Okay, we're off on the wrong subject," Howard said. "First, Jay, you're full of shit, and I could spend the evening pointing out how, but this isn't the time for a run-through of Jason Orange's sex life."

Jason gave Howard the dirtiest look possible whilst driving in late-night traffic around Waterloo Bridge.

"Second, Rob, you're a little bit in luck," Howard continued. "I talked to Ayda on our way to the studios. Dawn and the kids are in Oxford. They're coming back sometime tomorrow but at least for tonight you're good to be at Gary's until this is sorted out a little more."

"And how exactly is that going to happen?" Rob said. "I don't know what happened, guys. I swear I didn't find some magic potion and magick this into happening. I went to sleep in bed and woke up in a plane. This isn't my fault!"

"Are you sure about that Rob?" Jason asked. "None of your UFO fanaticists have managed to cook something up in a lab that you were willing to test out for them?"

"Do you honestly think that trying to do this would accomplish anything?" Howard asked. "Especially that crowd."

"Hey, some of that crowd are friends!" Rob argued.

"Yeah, and do you think they could actually do this?" Howard asked.

"Well, no," Rob conceded. “You said you talked to Ayda? Is she okay? And Teddy?”

“Both fine, mate,” Howard said. “Josie’s with them. They’re still trying to figure out what to do now. Gary’s not exactly handling this well.”

“You mean he hasn’t figured out how this is all my fault yet?” Rob almost sneered, which looked really odd on Gary’s face. 

“Rob, no one’s thinking it’s your fault,” Jason said.

“The first thing you both asked me when you met me after the show was what in the hell I did to Gary,” Rob said. “Same with Mark when he texted me. Like if I had that kind of power I’d use it to fuck with Gary.” 

“You have to understand that we’ve had about 24 years of you being unpredictable,” Jason said. “The natural instinct is to assume you have done something unpredictable. But in the end, no, you wouldn’t fuck with Gary. So I’m sorry we said that.”

Rob snorted and gazed out the window to the side of Howard, looking at the lights dancing on the Thames. Funny how things can change in a day. He was still him at the core, but he could feel Gary’s instincts, his impressions and feelings on things still seeping from the pores of the body he’d recently vacated. He had to admit that whilst it had been a lark being on the show as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, he kinda missed having the actual sheep there to reassure him things were okay. That they would figure all this out.. 

"Jay, you're the one who claims to know all about bodies and souls and how we connect to each other and all that crap you've talked about for 20 years now. What's happened? Am I Gary now? Is Gary me?"

Jason rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Mate, you have given me enough material today for a couple of years of nonstop thinking."

"Thanks for that, by the way," Howard muttered.

"But this is something I honestly have never even thought to think of," Jason continued, ignoring Howard. "I mean, you two are connected on some level because of all of the shared history and experiences. You also have the shared bond of songwriting.”

“I have that bond with you guys too, and I’m not in your body,” Rob said. “I think I’d prefer that, Jay. One night of that body and that brain and that magic...”

Jason wrinkled his nose.

“Rob, do you want to be me or to fuck me?” he asked. 

Before they could continue the discussion, Howard’s mobile chimed and he looked at an incoming message.

“Well, it looks like we know one thing that will happen,” he said. “Gary and Ayda are heading to LAX. They’ll be here tomorrow afternoon. We just have to figure out what to do until then. Gary doesn’t want Dawn to know about this.”

“HOW?!?” both Rob and Jason said simultaneously.

Rob really wanted to not be calm, to not be trying to joke with Jason and rationally be thinking this out. He wanted to do what he’d always done - get blazingly pissed and make bad choices. He wanted to throttle Jason, even if he was driving, and make him start thinking faster. He wanted to go lock himself into a room with a dog or two and his computer and his video game console, all of which were currently being lost on Gary. He wanted Ayda to be there to hug and kiss him and have her unique brand of wisdom, and he wanted Teddy to toddle over to him with her doll and a kiss.

And he wanted Gary. He wanted to kiss Gary. He wanted to throttle Gary. He wanted to hate Gary more than ever before but also to just cling to him and never let him go.

But instead of doing what he usually would, he was analysing things, making plans, instead of focusing on the pain. That was completely the opposite of what Rob would usually do. In fact, that’s what Gary would do.

That was the only thing that could cheer Rob up at this point. Maybe whatever piece of Gary that had been left behind would be the one to deal with Dawn tomorrow. Because he didn’t have a clue what to say to her, and he knew Gary would.


	5. Chapter 5

Frankly, the one thing that made Gary really happy about the situation was the fact that, as Rob, he could go everywhere in sweats and trainers. In fact, if he tried to dress up that would actually be suspicious. Gary enjoyed the illusion he’d managed to build up of being a fashion icon, but sometimes he really didn’t want to be bothered. Rob enjoyed not being bothered. Suddenly Gary found that really admirable.

So as Ayda, Gary and Mark walked into the LAX departures area, for all intents and purposes, they WERE Robbie Williams and his entourage. Immediately Gary could tell that it was not going to be the same experience he normally had when leaving Los Angeles. Instead of the lone paparazzi he occasionally encountered, there was a small gaggle of them, as if they had been tipped off to his arrival.

“Robbie!” Gary could hear above the constant loud clicks as he attempted to maneuver Teddy’s baby carrier. “Show us your kid, Robbie!”

Ayda was prepared and had a light blanket to put over the carrier’s hood to block her from the bright flashes, although she knew that in about 30 seconds Teddy would be expressing her disapproval loudly. But that didn’t assuage the photographers, who now seemed annoyed to be missing out on valuable father/daughter pictures. One in particular was out for blood.

“Oy Rob, think you’re too good for the press?” he yelled. “Like you’re too good for your band these days?”

Gary was used to having intrusive, sometimes rude things said to him. That was a normal thing in the life of a celebrity. But he had never had anything on this level with family, and even if this was technically kinda sorta not his family, he had the impulse to do something he never did in his own body - fight back.

“Shows how much you know,” he shot back. “Say hi to my mate Markie here. I think you know him, you arse.”

“Mark’s the only one who will put up with you,” the photog sneered. “Two old washed out drunks drying out together with your failed actress wife. That’s all you are.”

Mark, who was even less used to paparrazi than Gary, seemed to shrink even tinier. Ayda clearly wasn’t surprised, but Gary could see her shoulders sag. He was suddenly seeing red.

“You fucked up asshole,” he yelled, trying to give the baby carrier to Ayda and move towards the grinning photographer, who was doing his best to get as close to body contact as possible without actually hitting Gary himself. Later, Gary would recognize his intent - to set Rob up for an assault charge and a payoff.

Ayda, however, grabbed both Gary and Teddy’s carrier and propelled them forward into the building, into the VIP area and away from the paps. Mark grabbed Gary’s other arm and managed to keep him from turning back toward the photographers, who were all shouting at him now.

“C’mon mate, you’ve heard worse,” Mark said. “Let’s just get out of here.”

“But Mark, they insulted you!” Gary protested. “And Ayda too! Rob would stick up for you.”

“He tries, Gaz,” Ayda sighed, setting down the baby carrier and rubbing her head. Gary removed the blanket on the carrier, exposing a wailing Teddy, and unstrapped her to pick her up.

“That’s not the first time that’s happened,” Ayda continued, watching as Gary tried fruitlessly to console the baby. “Not even the first time with that guy. But if Rob gave him what he wants, he would be arrested on assault. And a conviction would mean losing his US visa and being barred from coming back here again.”

“That’s true,” Gary said slowly, finally calming down even though the toddler in his arms continued to scream. “But it’s fucked up Ayda.”

“That’s life for Robbie Williams,” Ayda said. “I thought you understood what it’s like for him. What he has to go through. It’s worse in England, even.”

“You’d think I would know,” Gary muttered, handing Teddy back to her mother. The child immediately stopped crying and just stared at him with her huge blue eyes, as if she was staring at a scary stranger. Which, in a way, she was. Because Gary knew that she could tell that he wasn’t her dad. He didn’t know how, but she knew.

Not for the first and certainly not the last time, Gary just wished he could transport himself straight to the UK, into Dawn’s arms, with her somehow magically understanding what had happened and making it right. Whatever “it” was.

\------------

It had taken a lot of work, but Rob somehow convinced Jason and Howard to leave him alone at Gary’s home that night. He knew Dawn wouldn’t be back until the next day and expected the family to come back the next afternoon, after church and lunch with Gary’s mum. Rob had never spent as much time with Gary’s family as Gary had with his own, since Rob had his own home in England, but he did remember the stories about the family and their traditions. For someone who seemingly lived such an abnormal celebrity life, Gary’s was actually very normal, and seemingly very boring to Rob. But it was lucky for him because he was able to persuade the other two that Dawn and the kids wouldn’t be back before they could come back in the morning.

“It’s not like you don’t live in the neighbourhood,” he said. “And I promise not to do anything to get into any trouble in the meantime. Scout’s honour.”

Even with that rare promise from Rob, Jason was more than a little resistant. But Howard ended up helping Rob out, telling him that he was clearly overstressed himself and needed a drink and a smoke at Howard’s house. Neither of which were things they could do around Rob.

After they left, Rob wasn’t yet tired despite the stress of the day and found himself wandering around the large home. The only parts he was well acquainted with were the studio, where he was afraid to touch most things, and the kitchen, which he was more than happy to rummage around. Gary’s chef clearly made more snacks than his did, especially things for the kids, so he munched on chocolate chip cookies and hoped that Gary wouldn’t yell at him when he got back in his body for any extra poundage that Rob amassed. He tried not to think about how unlikely that scenario seemed at the moment.

He remembered the mobile phone in his pocket and started scrolling through two dozen texts that had come in since he arrived in the UK. Most were boring - Gary apparently was known to discuss business even on weekend nights - but a few were entertaining, like the colourful text from Cheryl Cole about his X Factor comments. Rob smiled mischievously, wondering if Gary would mind if he stoked the fires of a new celebrity feud for him, but then looked at the next text. From Ayda.

“Rob, call me if you see this. xxoo A”

Rob immediately hit the Call option from the text and waited as the phone rang repeatedly. But eventually Ayda answered.

“Hi, is this Gary’s phone?” she asked. She couldn’t take the chance that it wasn’t actually Rob answering, but one of Gary’s assistants.

“It’s me, love,” Rob said. “I’m so fucking glad to hear your voice.”

“Oh God Rob, me too,” Ayda breathed as she stood in the British Airways boarding line at LAX. Hearing the sound of their friend’s name, Gary and Mark both looked towards the phone.

“Are you okay, baby?” Rob asked. “Is Teddy fine? Nothing else has happened, has it?”

“We’re fine,” Ayda assured him. “Gary is not so fine. He’s having a hard time dealing with this and LAX didn’t make it better.”

“Don’t tell me the paps fucked with him,” Rob groaned, rubbing his head and grimacing at the sight of Gary’s non-tattooed hands and manicured fingers.

“Yeah, Gaz almost decked one of them,” Ayda said. “You probably know the one.”

“Excellent,” Rob said. “Tell Gary that I understand the sentiment but I kinda like my green card.”

“He’s trying, but now people are bugging him for photographs and stuff,” she said. “It’s hard. But you know that.”

“I do,” Rob said, nodding. “Well, I’m fine. Just trying to figure out what in the hell is going on.”

“Me too, baby,” Ayda said. “But you know I love you no matter what, right? Even if I have to love you in Gary’s body.”

Rob felt himself tearing up.

“Got to go,” Ayda said quickly. “They’re letting us board first with the baby. We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, okay?”

“You will,” Rob said. “Tell Gary to get some sleep, okay? Maybe we’ll switch back magically if he does that.”

“Okay,” Ayda laughed. “Love you.”

Rob put down the mobile with a sigh and decided that it was time for him to attempt to rest. He went up to Gary and Dawn’s room and intended to sleep there, but accidentally opened a drawer full of “adult” items that left Rob both impressed with their creativity and a bit freaked out about exactly how well he was getting to know his friend. He felt like sleeping in that bed was strangely intrusive after that discovery, so he ended up on a couch downstairs.

\-------------------

Eight hours later Rob woke up on Gary’s couch to the sound of someone coming through the door. But instead of it being a hungover Jason and Howard, he came face to face with Dawn.

“Hi, sweetie!” Dawn singsonged, grabbing Rob into a tight hug that he was too half-asleep to anticipate or get properly freaked out about, thankfully.

“Hi Dawn,” Rob said, ducking his head around after the hug and shading his eyes in hopes of avoiding being detected outright. According to Howard, the eye colour was the thing that immediately was noticeable to people, and then it was his body language. Hopefully he could control that. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I know,” Dawn said as she proceeded to snuggle against Rob. “I decided to leave the kids with their grandmum and uncle in Oxford till tomorrow. They have a day off school and they wanted to go sailing with Ian this afternoon. And I saw you on the show last night.”

“You did?’ said Rob, who was doing his level best not to have a panic attack. So much for Gary and his boring, predictable life.

“Yes,” Dawn said teasingly. “And I could tell you weren’t really yourself out there. You had a really rough week, didn’t you?”

Rob sighed audibly. Maybe that was his ticket. Blame it all on stress.

“Yes, I have,” he said. “You have no idea what an arse Rob can be.”

“Not very cooperative, was he?” Dawn asked. “You should’ve told me when you called.”

“Ah, I don’t like to complain,” Rob said. “I like to keep it all to myself. No need to bother you with my work crap.”

“But that’s what I’m here for, love,” Dawn said as she started stroking his back. “To help you feel better when things are going wrong. But you’re here now and maybe I can help. I did some special shopping whilst you were gone...”

Rob’s head snapped up and he struggled somewhere between involuntary arousal and entirely involuntary panic.

“Can we take a raincheck?” Rob asked. “I’m expecting Howard and Jason to come by soon. We’re planning to hang out today. It’s been a long time.”

Dawn looked surprised.

“Really?” she asked. “Wow, are you sure? Are you okay?”  
Apparently Gary was not one to say no that often, Rob observed. He found himself more and more impressed by his apparent sex god status.

“I’m not feeling well, really,” he said as he turned and headed back towards the couch. “I don’t know if it was the flight or if I’ve caught something, but my head is bothering me. My eyes hurt too. Maybe I need to put on my shades.”

He moved his hand towards the side table, where Gary’s sunglasses and mobile phone were laying. But Dawn stopped him with her hand.

“No, before you do that, if you’re up to it, I’ve got something to show you,” she said as she picked up her purse and rummaged about.

Rob reluctantly allowed her to locate the DVD that she had stowed away in there and move towards the television. He hoped to any higher power available that Dawn hadn’t decided to film a homemade porno. He wasn’t sure how he could possibly handle that.

But what she put in was surprisingly even harder to handle than any NSFW video. Because it was a video of Gary’s little girl, Daisy, wearing a pink tutu and a huge grin.

“I know how upset you were about missing her first recital, so I got the cameraman to burn me a copy of the video before I left,” Dawn said. “I didn’t want you to feel like you missed everything.”

Rob tried to remember if Gary had told him about Daisy’s recital but couldn’t recall anything. Uncomfortably, he realized that meant either Gary had told him and he didn’t bother remembering or that Gary hadn’t told him because he didn’t want him to feel badly about it.

He also realized that was much of the reason why Gary had yelled at him right before leaving Los Angeles. Because he had spent an entire life choosing between his family and his work and trying to find a balance in that. But in this case Rob had made him choose between him and his family, and Gary had chosen him. But it wasn’t a choice he was able to make peace with easily.

The little girl on the television screen wasn’t his, but Rob felt the depth of emotion that Gary had for her, deep within his core. It was the same emotion that he felt for his own daughter. And mixed with all that love was a huge helping of guilt, similar to that which Rob always felt because he had always felt like he wasn’t quite enough for Teddy.

Rob had always assumed those feelings were part of his weirdness, his insecurities, something that was part of Robbie Williams, and thus he expressed them as such. But he didn’t realize that Gary shared them too. He just didn’t express his.

Suddenly, despite all his best efforts to “be” Gary and stay controlled, he found himself bursting into tears.

“Gary, what’s wrong?” Dawn asked urgently, pulling a sobbing Rob close to her. She was unused to seeing her husband cry, even when she knew he was upset. That just wasn’t Gary’s way.

Rob looked over at her, directly looked at her for the first time, and she finally saw the intensity in his eyes, eyes that were distinctly different than her husband’s.

“Dawn, I can’t lie to you,” he said. “I wish to God that I were Gary because he would know how to tell you this. But I’m not him.”

Dawn looked at him silently and then replied.

“You’re Rob,” she said.


	6. Chapter 6

Mark honestly didn’t think it could get any more surreal. His friend had switched fucking BODIES with his other friend, no one had a clue how in the hell that had happened, and somehow he was the one keeping this weird combination of both of his best friends from going mental as he dealt with crazy paps, intrusive fans, and flight personnel who thought it was appropriate to show them her tattoo she got after a concert they all had performed at together. The tattoo was hardly in the most family-friendly of places, and they were in fucking first class, for god’s sake.

Man, maybe something had happened to his own personality, Mark thought. Because suddenly his mind was swearing like a sailor. He made a mental note to make sure he and Howard weren’t in the process of doing the same sort of mind meld.

But the situation that couldn’t get more surreal had actually made a leap into the absurd, because somehow sharing their first-class cabin from JFK to Heathrow were a pair of guys who knew Rob better than most people on earth, and who had spent considerably less time with Gary, and now Gary was having to do his best not to panic as Ant and Dec peppered him with questions from the seats directly in front of him.

“Remember the last time we were on a flight together?” Declan said with a grin.

Ro-, um, Gary’s face was scrunched up. He looked a lot like Rob with one of his sneers, but not quite.

“You have the worst memory mate,” laughed Declan. “It was that fancy private plane you had during the Close Encounters tour. We hopped a flight when we did your gig.”

“Oh yeah,” Gary tried his best not to look too relieved. “You know me before a show. I’m not thinking of anything except how not to look like a twat.”

“And then you fall onstage,” Ant chuckled at the memory of Rob’s Leeds date on that tour.

“Like you’ve never fallen,” Dec countered. “Trying to dance on a chair backstage at BGT, landed on your head...”

That set the twosome off for a few more minutes of their trademark verbal jousting, which gave Mark enough time to think of a topic to distract Ant and Dec from asking “Rob” any more questions about what he’d been writing, or what his plans were with Take That or any other potential landmine questions.

“So Declan, what’s the deal with the Newcastle manager?” Mark asked.

Gary knew that Mark had less than no interest in the state of Newcastle football or the various rumours and intrigue within the league, so he smiled gratefully as he leaned over to Ayda, who was trying to soothe a fussy Teddy.

“Not liking the altitude, eh Teddy?” he cooed as he stuck a finger towards the toddler’s mouth. He remembered Emily sucking his fingers during flights from LA to London during their expat days, and how that sucking seemed to soothe her ears.

Teddy looked at the man who looked like her daddy but clearly wasn’t her daddy and suddenly screamed bloody murder. All the other passengers in first class, clearly ready to sleep through the red-eye, looked ready to strangle Gary. Par for the course, he realized. He sighed.

Ayda stood up with her daughter wailing, ready to escape to the loo.

“It’s okay,” she said, looking at Gary. “It’s not your fault. She’s teething and she hates being confined.”

Gary just nodded.

“Thanks for being so patient, Ayda,” he said. “If you were freaking out, I don’t think I could make it.”

Ayda smiled.

“Like what was said before, I’m used to Rob,” she said as she retreated to the toilet.

Ant, who had apparently caught parts of the conversation, was busy trying to figure out what was off with his friend. It wasn’t that odd to see him wear sunglasses even on a plane, and otherwise he looked like the last 100 times he’d seen his friend, but just the way he said things...

“Rob, has everything been okay with you on this hiatus?” he asked. “I know you have trouble when you go off tour...”

“I’m not back on Vicodin and guzzling Lucozade, if that’s what you’re asking,” Gary said in a tone that was vaguely sharp. Mark sensed trouble.

“He’s fine,” Mark rushed in. “Just getting a bit of jetlag already, probably. He already sleeps on a weird schedule, and he’s been up writing a lot.”

“With Barlow?” Dec chuckled as he sipped his scotch. “He goes to bed at 9 pm. No way that Gary would burn the midnight oil. He’s like a farmer or a nun.”

Mark could see Gary turning slightly purple, so he did his best to turn it into a laugh.

“Well, you know how opposites attract, yeah?” Mark said. “I think that Rob and Gary are the best example of how that’s true.”

“I used to think that, but I actually think that there’s a lot of the same underneath,” Ayda said, sliding back into her seat with a dozing Teddy. “That’s why you love them both, Markie.”

Mark had to admit that was weirdly true.

“I think that’s what made it so hard for them after the breakup,” Ayda continued, staring at Gary, who seemed to be rendered mute by the people who were discussing him and “him” as if he wasn’t even in the room. “They both understood so much that the parts they didn’t understand drove them a bit mad. At least that was the case for Rob. I can’t speak for Gary.”

Gary felt compelled to pipe up and had to somehow speak for himself without speaking for himself. So he spoke slower than Rob would, because he wanted to get it right.

“When we wrote ‘Shame’, we talked about wanting to make each other hurt,” he said. “We didn’t think the other person knew how much pain we were in, so we would send it to each other but then it turned right back around on us.”

“Karma, maybe?” asked Mark. “Something had popped into his head but he wasn’t quite ready to articulate it.”

“Maybe,” Rob said. “But I think it was just this real need to be totally understood. Completely accepted as we were to each other. All that crap.”

Dec and Ant looked at each other, clearly a little confused. Suddenly they seemed to be listening into this weird almost metaphysical conversation that really wasn’t related to what they were talking about.

“I think that fatherhood is making you even more of a softie, mate,” Declan clapped a hand on his friend. “And you’re the guy who plays ‘Ol’ Yeller’ once a year just to cry over all his dead pets.”

Gary jumped on this topic, as it was something he’d actually witnessed during one of his early Los Angeles trips.

“Hey, nothing wrong with remembering my babies!” he said. “They have been my most loyal mates. Better than you lot.”

Ant laughed and cuffed Gary’s ear, clearly used to getting the mickey off Rob. And thankfully around that time Ayda was able to use a sleeping baby as an excuse to end the discussion and at least pretend to sleep.

\-------------------

After what seemed like the world’s car ride from Heathrow to Earl’s Court, Gary finally was back home. REALLY at home, not on Rob’s turf as Los Angeles and environs therein always seemed to be for him. Surely things would start to look normal here, he thought as he stood next to Ayda behind Mark as he rang the gate.

Howard opened the door, looking very grateful to see the other three. Clearly things had been little better for the London half of this bizarre soap opera that day.

“Markie,” he reached up and ruffled Mark’s hair as he looked over at Gary, still rocking the sunglasses and completely, for that moment, looking like Rob. Was he going to be like Gary at all or had Rob essentially just multiplied personalities? He couldn’t help but shudder slightly.

Gary mustered up a classic Barlow open-mouthed grin and reached over to hug his friend.

“How’s it going mate?” he asked. “Has Rob given any tell-all interviews yet?”

Howard couldn’t help but chuckled.

“I think something inside you rubbed off on him, mate,” he said. “He actually has kind of quit talking.”

Ayda looked concerned.

“When did that happen?” she asked as she moved inside Gary’s front garden carrying Teddy’s carrier. Gary set their baggage beside her and avoided getting into Teddy’s line of sight. He’d learnt about 20 times since Los Angeles that even the sight of him made her scream.

“He’s been like that since we got here this morning,” Howard shrugged. “Dawn said he clammed up after she found out.”

“WHAT?!?” Gary exploded as his wife was mentioned. “He wasn’t supposed to tell her! She’s not meant to know!”

“Don’t be pissed, mate,” Howard said. “She figured it out herself. Apparently Gary turning down sex and bursting into tears is not a normal occurrence in the Barlow household.

Gary couldn’t decide if he was scarred or proud. He decided on merely freaking out about Dawn’s apparent knowledge that her husband was stuck in Robbie Williams’ body. He was pretty sure she was the only person less thrilled about that then him.

“I can’t believe, well, I just can’t believe this shit period,” he sighed. “Where is she? I probably need to talk to her so she knows I’m here, even if I'm covered with tattoos. 

Howard grinned.

“In your room, Gaz,” he said. “Do us a favour and hold off on testing out Rob’s body parts until later, at least. It sounds kinky, though.”

Gary rolled his eyes and flashed two fingers at Howard as he turned into the house and towards the staircase towards the upper level and his bedroom. The others chucked as he retreated.

“Where is Jay?” Mark asked as they moved into the foyer.

“With Rob,” Howard said, pointing towards the kitchen. “Trying to feed him various teas. I’m pretty sure this can’t be cured by herbs, or at least not the legal kinds.”

“Well, you know Jay,” Mark said. “He’s trying to heal the world, one green tea leaf at a time.”

The three adults and the baby walked into the kitchen, where Jay and Rob were sitting at the kitchen island with two steaming mugs. Rob jumped up and ran towards his wife and baby, as if debating which he should tackle first.

Ayda had made it easy for him by getting Teddy out of her carrier in the foyer. So he was able to envelope them both into a huge hug.

“My girls,” he sniffled into Ayda’s shoulder. To add insult to injury, he just realized that he wasn’t much taller than his wife anymore, so even the snuggling was different. But he was just glad to be in the familiar arms of his two favourite people.

Ayda just hugged her husband, grateful that although the body felt different his spirit was still the same. He was still Rob. And that was enough.

“What’s this about, Rob?” she laughed. “I just saw you a little over a day ago. Nothing’s changed!”

Rob chuckled in a way that could only be classed as ironic.

“Everything’s changed but you,” he said.

\-------------

The next hour was very quiet in the house, as the rest of the bandmates left Rob and Gary to talk to their wives. Dawn was doing her best to grasp what had happened, but it was a bigger shock to her than anyone and she was the most distraught about the potential ways their lives would change if her husband and his friend stayed in each other’s bodies permanently.

Neither Gary or Rob had fully been able to contemplate such an eventuality, but that question was also the one that haunted their three bandmates, who retreated to Gary’s back garden with three of Jason’s herbal concoctions and a mind full of questions and problems to sort.

“So Jay, you’re the one who actually reads about this soul-body-mind stuff,” Mark said. “You have to have a little bit of a clue what’s going on here and what can fix it.”

“Mate, if I could switch bodies don’t you think I would’ve put that to use before?” Jason asked.

“Honestly, no,” Mark said. “You kind of have the perfect body and I don’t see you giving it up without a fight.”

Jason pondered that for a moment.

“You have a point,” he conceded. “But not just because I have a fit body. I just know it’s mine and I’ve worked on it a lot and I don’t want anyone else to screw it up.”

“The first thing I would do if I got your body would be to go eat a cheeseburger,” Howard teased. “A big greasy one from McDonald’s so it has all the good chemicals in it. And drink about a liter of fizzy drink so that I could get all that sugar into my system.”

Jason rolled his eyes.

“The first thing you would do is go have sex with my body, Dougie,” he said.

“I have plenty of sex with my current body, thank you very much!” Howard said indignantly.

“Yes, but you can’t fuck yourself with your current body,” Jason pointed out.

“So what you’re saying is that you want to switch bodies so that you can have me fuck myself and yourself at the same time,” Howard leered. “You kinky wanker.”

Mark had enough to think about without that weird mental image, thank you very much.

“Okay guys, I don’t even want to know,” he said. “Right now we’ve got to focus on Rob and Gary, because they’re too close to this to be able to see what’s going on completely clearly.”

Both Howard and Jason nodded.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about something that came up on the plane,” Mark continued. “It was mentioned as I tried to distract Ant and Dec.”

“What, Ant and Dec were on the plane?” Jason asked. “That was probably about as much fun as the nightmare of running into Olly Murs backstage at X Factor.”

“We were a more captive audience, so to speak,” Mark said. “But we did manage to get them to sleep most of the flight. Liquor works wonders.”

“Too bad we couldn’t use that on Rob backstage,” Howard groaned. “He was still feeling powerful at that point. But now he’s suddenly really lost.”

“Gary was pretty much always that way,” Mark said. “But I don’t think he really had a good idea about what all is involved in being Rob. It’s a lot more intrusive than it is for Gaz, normally. And maybe that’s the point of this.”

Howard looked confused.

“So Gary is supposed to get hassled by paps and Rob is supposed to fend off his wife?” he asked.

“Well, kinda,” Mark said. “They’re supposed to learn how each other feels.”

Jason looked thoughtful.

“So some sort of extreme empathy thing?” he asked. “Or a transference of emotion?”

“I’m not sure,” Mark said. “I don’t read books on this stuff, mate. You’re the one for that.”

“You’re smarter than you give yourself credit for, Markie,” Jason protested. “But where did you come up with that?”

“The lyrics from ‘Shame’ was mentioned,” Mark said. “The whole thing about wanting the other to feel their pain, but they got it back returned to sender.”

“So basically they wrote this out years ago,” Howard said. “Like this was supposed to happen.”

“And I’m supposed to feel like this,” said Rob, suddenly appearing from the kitchen entrance, looking calm but hollow-eyed. “Like I’m stuck in this whole new life that I didn’t ask for. It seems so great for Gary, now that I see it. It’s perfect for him. But it’s not me.”

“Your life isn’t for me either,” said Gary, stepping into the garden from the other side and standing directly across from his body, that familiar essence of him that was inhabited by someone who seemed half-stranger now.

Their three friends sat mutely at the table as the two of them stared at each other, sizing up what it was actually like to see themselves, but not even really recognizing what they saw.


	7. Chapter 7

Gary realized that he had never really seen Rob cry. Not properly cry, at least. “Ol’ Yeller” aside.

Yes, he’d seen him get choked up at shows in recent years, including a video he saw from Rob’s last European tour where a fan’s sign had made him visibly sob, and had witnessed his reaction to “Never Forget” on the Progress tour. He had seen him howl with laughter so hard that tears streamed down his face. The night the two of them mended fences definitively in Los Angeles and ended up rolling on the floor with emotion was probably the closest he’d seen to that sheer amount of reaction from Rob.

When things had been bad with the two of them, Rob had not shouted or cried or even really indicated that he gave a shit about anything. He had sulked and acted above it all. The first time he ever knew that Rob could even really feel that deeply was years later watching Rob’s documentary, “Nobody Someday”, on the telly and witnessing Rob’s shock and fear after being attacked onstage. It was his own personal first step towards feeling empathy with his former friend and how despite grabbing the fame they’d both grappled for as new solo artists, Rob had never actually been as comfortable with it as Gary had thought.

But Gary also realized that the Rob he had seen before was not the man he thought he had known for decades now. In truth he was sullen to repress things that caused him more trouble than he’d get into if he opened his mouth. The incidental annoyances of his life piled up as one person after another wanted a piece of him. That was the case with Gary also, but in his case - at least for the past 10 years or so - there was a lot of respect and deference for him and people often apologized for their requests. With Rob there was little respect and no apologies for demanding things from him. Even though he had accomplished practically the same things and had given just as much back to the world.

So now he looked at his friend, now looking literally like a mirror image of him, and knew where the tears streaming down his, well Gary’s, cheeks came from. It was from the same place where sobs were bubbling up out of his own chest. Tears he himself had rarely shed, particularly in front of Rob. And he knew that as Rob looked at him, he was seeing that also. For the first time in the almost-25 years they’d known each other, they actually really knew each other without telling each other anything.

\--------------------

Jason looked at the two of them sitting in the garden together from the kitchen window, concern etched on his face.

“What’s happening out there, mate?” Howard asked from his perch on Dawn’s kitchen island as he watched her chopping various vegetables for some sort of pastry. Apparently her best therapy in times of trouble was chopping things.

“Nothing at all,” Jason replied. “Except for the fact that the gardener won’t need to water your grass for the next year at least, because they’re crying enough to create a new river.”  
Dawn looked up from her relentless chopping.

“GARY’S crying?” she asked. She laid her knife down as she prepared to go to the garden to be with him. Even though she had seen a man who she had thought was her husband bawl all over her earlier that day, she knew that in truth she’d only seen him cry a handful of times during their marriage. Clearly he needed her.

Mark caught her by the arm before she could get to the door.

“Dawn, leave them,” he said. “They need to do this. I think they’re just sorting out stuff. This is the first time they’re seeing each other in all this, after all. First time they’re even speaking.”

“But before all this Rob was yelling at Gary!” Dawn argued. “Rob told me. What if he’s doing that again? He can’t be blaming Gary for all this.”

“He’s not,” Ayda said from the table, where she was feeding Teddy on her lap. “Believe me, he’s not angry at Gary at all. He feels guilty.”

“But why?” Dawn asked. “Did he do this? He seems so calm about it. Rob’s never been calm about anything that I’ve seen.”

“Not at all,” Howard said. “He thinks we all believe he did, but he’s just as shocked as any of us. And the only reason he’s not freaking out is because he’s apparently still got at least some of Gary’s emotions in him. That’s why Gary basically had a meltdown in LA for a few hours. He reacted like Rob would’ve.”

Tears welled up in Dawn’s eyes.

“So my husband’s in another man’s body, with another man’s emotions,” she said. “He’s not my Gary anymore. What are we supposed to do?”

Ayda started to say something, but then seemed to realize the truth in what Dawn was saying. She lowered her head and continued to feed Teddy whilst trying to blink back her own tears.

Jason left his place at the kitchen window and went to Dawn, wrapping his arms around her.

“It’s going to be okay, Dawn,” he said. “Gary’s still there. Rob’s still there too. And this is going to be sorted out somehow. We just have to figure it out.”

“But how, Jay?” Dawn cried against his chest. “We don’t know what happened. We don’t know if this is permanent. We don’t know ANYTHING!”

Jason nodded slowly.

“I don’t have the answers yet,” he said. “I wish I did. God, I wish I did.”

Howard jumped down from his own perch on the kitchen island and wrapped himself around the other side of Dawn, hugging both her and Jason silently.

“Well, I think we got a clue of sorts from one song earlier,” Mark said as he patted Ayda on the back and made funny faces at Teddy. “And that might be part of the ‘Why’ on this happening. Maybe this is their way of sharing their pain in their own fucked-up way.”

Everyone else silently nodded. Even though there wasn’t anything scientific to base that on, it seemed to oddly make sense.

“Maybe there is a clue in another song,” Mark continued. “The biggest lesson of all. Patience.”

“So that means we have to just accept this?” Dawn said incredulously. “Pretend that everything’s okay and somehow tell my kids that Robbie Williams is actually their daddy? That would be confusing.”

“You’re telling me,” Howard muttered.

“No, we don’t have to accept it or pretend life is going to be easy or normal for anyone,” Jason said as he kissed Dawn’s hair. “We just have to adjust as much as we can. Figure out how to tell people or not tell people, as it is. See if we can find any answers through other people, someone who understands metaphysics or such. And hope that whatever lesson is supposed to be learnt is learnt quickly and things can go back as they were.”

Dawn didn’t look convinced, but she no longer looked like the world was ending. Ayda, hugging her daughter, felt a measure of hope come back. And the others tried to smile at each other. Even if everything else they knew seemed to look out of focus, they at least knew that they had each other, and the boys and their families had them to see this through. They would somehow figure this out. Just maybe not today.

\---------------------

Out in the garden Gary and Rob had worked through their own tears and were finally talking calmly. No blame or accusations or recriminations between them. Suddenly none of that stuff even mattered, nor did the idea of being stuck in their current predicament. For the first time, they were focused on each other, not everything else.

“I knew you had a lot to deal with from the press and the paps and the fans,” Gary shook his head. “I just really didn’t KNOW it, if that makes sense. I’m sorry that I really didn’t before.”  
“Mate, how could you really understand that?” Rob said almost gently. “I’ve only met a handful of people in my lifetime who could. There’s a difference between fame and infamy, and somehow I drew the short stick with that.”

“I get that now,” Gary said. “But man, I can also see how it can be fun for you in other ways. I feel so much less restricted in what I say. And that’s both scary and empowering.”

“After trying to rein in all my opinions in one X Factor taping, I’ve kinda figured out how tough that can be,” Rob admitted. “You sure do manage to finesse things in a way I’d never appreciated.”

Gary smiled.

“I hear that the band act weren’’t well pleased being told they aren’t very entertaining,” he said. “And why do I expect Cheryl Cole to call sometime this week with an earful?”

Rob twisted his face - well, Gary’s - into a knowing grin.

“I’d apologise if I didn’t know you agreed with me,” he said.

“Absolutely,” Gary said. “Maybe I need to let Grumpy Gary out more.”

“You’re fine just as you are,” Rob said. “Really. Although mate, couldn’t you have worn something better than my shit trainers?”

“I didn’t get your fashion sense with your body, apparently,” Gary smiled.

“Fine by me,” Rob said. “If I’m stuck in your body for awhile expect some changes in your wardrobe. Having seen this equipment you’ve been packing, I don’t know how you’ve been able to walk in these skinny jeans.”

“I really don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted,” Gary said. “But all that crap you’ve said for years about being small is just part of your schtick, huh?”

Rob laughed.

“Just take good care of it,” Rob said. “Ayda will miss it.”

And suddenly they were silent again.

“We still have a lot to figure out, mate,” Gary said slowly, looking at Rob’s hands, running fingers over the LOVE tattoos.

“We do,” Rob nodded. “But you know what? I can’t think of a better person to be stuck in side whilst we do. We’ll make it work.”

“This is a nice change, Bob,” Gary said. “No regrets, no freaking out.”

“Yes,” Rob said. “Just love.”

Gary reached over and gave his friend - his best friend still - a hug.


	8. Chapter 8

Getting used to life with Gary Barlow as Robbie Williams and vice versa was not something that anyone was actually able to accomplish. But they muddled through, and somehow that was enough.

The eye colour differences were easily sorted by contact lenses. They each learnt how to mimic each other’s body language and personality tics with the help of Ayda, who quite enjoyed putting all those acting lessons to good use. And they spent most of their time together anyway, so if someone asked one of them a question that they should’ve known the answer to but didn’t, the other was able to help them muddle through without attracting attention.

The people who needed to know what had happened were quietly told, and most of them handled the news reasonably well. Funny enough, no one connected with Rob who was told was terribly shocked. Like Ayda and Josie, they were used to just about anything where he was concerned. Jonny got a kick out of the whole thing and liked to tease Rob that he kind of appreciated the changes in his best friend since Gary had taken over Rob’s body. Rob did not find that so funny. Most of the people who knew Gary best who found out weren’t able to deal with it so easily, but they adjusted as they were able to spend time with Gary, realizing that he basically was the same guy they knew with a few tattoos and a lot more body hair.

Only a couple of showbiz people were told. Olly Murs knew both of the guys well and was enlisted because he would be able to assist them both in public if needed. He thought it was a trip and asked Rob if he could switch up with him next. Also, Jason quietly reached out to Professor Brian Cox in the process of trying to find a fix, figuring that if anyone might have a scientific clue to the whole thing, it might be him. Brian was intrigued and although he didn’t have any outright answers, he was able to discreetly arrange for a lab for testing the men for further research. He and Jason continued to look for clues and spent a lot of time doing research, to the point where Jason joked that they would have to collaborate on a documentary when this was all over.

They all decided not to tell Gary’s children what had happened for now, because no one could figure out a way to do it. Being kids, they chalked up and weirdness in their dad as him “being weird.” But Rob legitimately enjoyed them and had great relationships with them anyway, so there was really not much difference beyond him not being as affectionate with their mum as they might remember, and as kids they probably appreciated that. Plus suddenly they were spending a lot more time on holidays and expeditions with “Uncle Rob” and had a great time with him, so Gary did get to enjoy his kids even if it was in a painfully different way than by being known as Daddy. As for Teddy, she was too young to really be able to comprehend anything anyway, but everyone did get a kick out of how much she suddenly loved “Uncle Gary”.

They all avoided going out in public as much as possible after The X Factor was over - and Gary had to admit that Rob smashed the rest of the shows, whilst Rob said he would’ve never done it well without Gary’s collaboration. But luckily they were meant to be making the new Take That album anyway. So early in the year the entire crew set up camp at Rob’s LA estate, where they could both work on music and continue working everything out in relative peace. And where they would discover that, weirdly enough, both Gary and Rob could play the piano now.

\----------------------

“Well, as they say on movies, that’s a wrap,” Rob said, rubbing his hands over the light stubble on his cheeks. He would never get used to how much softer Gary’s skin was than his, but he found he enjoyed the feel of it.

Gary looked up from Rob’s baby grand, where he had been perfecting the middle-eight of their tune.

“Are you sure?” he asked. “Don’t you think that the song leaves us a little too….”

“Exposed?” Rob suggested.

“Well, yeah,” Gary said. “Maybe we should tone it down a notch. We pretty much come right out and say that we are each other. Don’t you think people will get suspicious if they hear this.”

“Let them,” Rob argued. “They’re suspicious of everything we say anyway. Every song has been interpreted as being about how we hate each other or are in love with each other. This is just another chapter in that.”

“I don’t know,” Gary said slowly.

Mark, who was sitting in the corner looking at a stylebook Luke had compiled of possible looks for the upcoming promotional cycle, looked up.

“I know, Gary,” he said. “And that song is perfect. It’s exactly what you need to say.”

Jason and Howard came into the room, carrying trays full of tea mugs and biscuits.

“You guys still nattering over whether the song’s ready or not?” Howard said. “Just leave it Gaz.”

“But I don’t want to make things any harder than they already are,” Gary argued. “Jay, you’re the worrywart. Don’t you think it’s a mistake to sing about this? To even do ANY of this as things are?”

Surprisingly to Gary, Jason shook his head.

“I think it’s time, Gary,” he said. “We’ve adjusted and gone through this, and instead of just making do we’ve made the best album we’ve ever made. I love every bit of it. The fans deserve to hear this.”

His words seemed to mollify Gary, who looked down at the tattoos on Rob’s arms. He spotted the TT symbol and smiled.

“Rob, I never could understand why you got this thing, but now I quite like it,” he said. “It keeps me grounded and reminds me that this is all more than myself.”

Rob smiled mischievously.

“Well, now that you mention it, I did head down to the Valley the other day and get some new art…”

He pantomimed pulling down the back of his skinny jeans, as if to reveal a tattoo on his bum. Gary shrieked and Rob laughed.

“Just kidding, mate,” he said. “But maybe you should give it a try when we get this all sorted, now that you’ve seen my art’s not so bad.”

Gary smiled, with a smidge of Rob’s cheekiness but mostly his own bright sparkle.

“You know, I just might,” he said.

After about an hour more of tea and biscuits, chatter and celebration that the latest chapter of Take That’s musical journey was ready for recording, they all made their way towards their beds. For Rob and Gary, that meant the still odd situation of going to sleep with their wives. 

They paused alone in the hallway outside of Rob’s bedroom, talking quietly.

“Don’t have too much fun, Bob,” Gary said. “Ayda might like my body better and miss it when we’re sorted again.”

Rob chuckled.

“Not a chance, mate,” he said. “Sleep well, or fuck well, or whatever.”

They laughed and hugged. Then suddenly Rob reached up and gave his friend a peck on the lips.

“Man, it’s weird kissing myself,” he said. “I’m going to go buy you some Chapstik.”

Gary smacked him as Rob went into his bedroom, then walked in the next door and joined Dawn in bed. Soon he found himself sound asleep.

Rob woke up early the next morning, needing to switch back before Gary’s kids or Teddy awoke and discovered anything weird afoot. However, when he walked into his toilet and look into the mirror, he froze.

There was his black hair. There was his tattoos. He was back to being simply Robbie Williams.

He ran down the hall, ran into Gary and Dawn’s bedroom, and pounced on the bed, startling them out of their sleep.

“Gary, we’re back! Look!” he screamed.

Gary, still half asleep looked up at Rob and realized, for the first time in six months, that he looked like Rob. He looked down at himself and saw his own arms, with no tattoos. 

“Oh my God, we’re back!” he said as he hugged Rob again.

 

\-------------------------

Out in the guesthouse, Jason was awakening himself. He was always an early riser, because he liked to get his daily yoga out of the day. 

He sat up and rubbed his face, trying to banish the sleep in his eyes. But weird, why did his chin feel so much smaller?

He grabbed at his chin with one hand and ran his fingers through his hair with the other, finding the hair softer and curlier than he was used to. Then he looked over at Howard and screamed.

Howard woke up with a start.

“Bloody hell Jay, what’s the ruckus about?” Howard grumbled as he rolled over from his stomach. “Is there another spider? Someday you’re going to have to learn how to get rid of them yourself, y’know.”

For the first time he could remember, Jason was mute. Maybe Howard had gotten his wordiness along with his body. Because the man next to him looked just like Jason, and suddenly Jason looked like Howard.

“Fucking hell,” he finally said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this turned into something I didn't expect. It proves that I am utterly unable to write anything cracky - there always has to be angst. Thanks to everyone who has patiently supported me as I muddled through, and a special thanks to sleepinginyourflowerbed on Tumblr, who has acted as my de-facto beta and cheering section. Also thanks to everyone who has left comments and kudos through the long waits for chapters. Without you I don't know if I'd be writing this now! Finally, thanks to the guys for continuing to be ridiculously inspirational.


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